Tonight I am pining for this, and this, as they would go well together, and as I am very much wishing I had that art thing to doodle with right now, because it sounds as if it would be soothing.  The pen I have been aching over for a year.

In other news, it turns out all I have to do to get out of OMG SCENE HELL OMG is to play Axiom of Choice's "Evanescent" on repeat until I get through the scene.  Noted, and thank you Jesus.

To bed.

The Song I Cannot Stop Playing this week is "Evanescent," by Axiom of Choice.  Listen to it here.  It's doing lovely things for act one and the ability to make the first few scenes be actual scenes.  Just a damn beautiful song.  Listen all the way into the middle section where the female singer starts . . . I don't know what she's doing.  It's like the Persian equivalent of yodeling or calling out or whatever.  If it doesn't make you melt, there's no helping you.

Hulu.  I was introduced to this by my SIL's boyfriend.  I forsee a lot of TV watching.  I already started Burn Notice, though so far I'm only meh on it.  (I've only watched to the first commercial break.)  But basically Hulu is the place to watch a lot of TV for free.  A LOT of TV for free.  On demand.  Netflix could be in trouble.  I mean, they even have Battlestar Galactica.

Burnin' Sensations.  This one is only good if you're a central Iowan, but we saw them today at Prairie Moon Winery, and they were as much fun as their website hints they are.  I now want to have a party so I can hire them.  And I want the party at Prairie Moon's banquet hall.  Dan said it should be a book launch.  My only thought is since most of my family will run from this book, I'm going to have to beg publicly to get people to come.  If I provide good music in a place with kick ass wine, and find a good caterer, you'll all be there, right?

Anyway.  Going to rewrite the inn fight scene from Timothy's POV.  It will be great as soon as I can get him to stop snarling about how much he hates Etsey.

going to an energy therapy appointment and not only being praised for finishing the thing I've been working on ever since I started energy therapy and by the woman who has seen me cry/dragged out bad energy more than anyone, being told that all my chakras were open, being told my energy field was radically different and in a good way, very receptive, being relieved of both a strange swelling in my right ear but also all the pain and tension from my shoulders that no massages would relieve--not only all this, but being told at the end of the session to put my checkbook away because, as this was my 11th session, this one was free.

Good day.  Damn, damn good day, and coming on the heels of a very lovely evening seeing Missy Higgins with ooshiny.

<Happy, happy sigh.>

Everybody reading this entry needs to go read Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark, unless of course you've already read it, and if you have, you know why.

Everybody.  I don't care if you read or if you don't like to, or what kinds of books you like or don't like, or if you think you're in the mood for this sort of book or not.  If you can read, you should read this book.

The woman should be given a country to run, and an unlimited budget with which to do it.  And thank god she has one hell of a backlist.

It's 74 degrees and sunny.

Grandpa made it through his surgery and is in recovery, AND they only had to do a triple, not a quadruple bypass. The family there is planning a cribbage tournament.

Dan and I just went down to the bike shop to drop off his and Anna's bikes which needed repairing, and I came home with this.

Dido, "Here With Me."  No idea why yet, but there's got to be one hell of a scene coming out of it at some point.  In TWA, thank goodness.  Because, just to reiterate, Story Head People, I am not accepting comments from other stories right now.  End. Of. Discussion.  Other Etsey stuff as it is pertinent is of course fine.  But everybody else has to STAY DOWN and help this one be born.

I am looking at you, SMALL TOWN BOY.  If you ever want to see the sun, you stay shut up.

In unrelated news, I just managed to get soot all over my keyboard keys.  I have no idea how, nor do I know how to get it off.  Because I think the attempt to do so is going to look something like hjjhhyuyuyuhgjbnbnnjkkjiuyyuyyyyyuioiujkjkjki, and really, it didn't work anyway.

Back to work.  Look at me not talking about writing. I'm a sealing queen.

Goddamn it, there's MORE SOOT.  FROM WHENCE DO YOU COME, BLACK STUFF??? 

The things I suffer for art.

The cutest damn thing you'll see all day. From Al Dente.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Seven seasons in three minutes and 20 seconds. Seriously.

I love the E.S. Posthumus song "Odenall Pi" so much I could marry it.  Seriously.  Just loop it for the rest of my life, please. 

That's all.  Back to my whacked out moon in Cancer and dancing with the Devil.

Dancing to the lovely sounds of "Odenall Pi," though.


(Can't link to it, sorry--nowhere but on iTunes.)

I've actually been meaning to purchase a black dress and a pair of mid-season shoes for some time; the thought of being able to go out on the town in NYC with Dan/take a carriage ride with Anna and having nothing to wear was bothering me.  So I just fixed that.


Very basic--David Tate "music" (?) slide from Shoe Mall and a Soft Surroundings Dress.  I'm sort of back into my no-fuss dressing regime, as evidenced by the fact that I am always, always, always wearing jeans, the grey sweater, and my clogs.  It's not that I don't want to wear other clothes.  It's just that right now I am in hibernation in so many ways, and clothes are part of it. 

But I have been missing a basic "look nice" outfit--I can fake it for winter, and summer too, but fall/spring are tricky.  Clogs/boots won't work.  Too cold for sandals.  So I'm liking this number and that dress.  I may have to break down and by nylons--god, it's been years--but I might be able to work something out once I see the dress, which is LOOONG.  Yay.  Also, the right scarf/shawl/necklace will set that dress off a treat.  And I think the famous grey sweater could go over it, too, as (maybe) could my green velvet jacket.

Or I can just wear it and be black and hermity, which is mostly what I will do. 

Next up is a spring coat, which I have already been trying to sort out.  I'm not in a hurry over it, though.  It will work itself out in its own time.

In other news, I have not written much in the past few days.  Some of it is needing a break.  Some of it was gearing up for today, which is a nice long expanse, uninterrupted.  I had cleansing dreams last night, though one was odd and involved my mother and stepfather.  I'm tacking that up to trip nerves and spillover from the OMG HOTEL fiasco last night, which is now solved.  We have planes.  We have a hotel.  We have trip money.  I have a dress and shoes.  Dan will have a big fat iPod with more room than our living room on it.    Actually, it just NOW came to the door via Fed Ex.

Now I just have to go finish that story.  Off to do so.

For the month of March, American Gods is online free from Harper Collins.   Not an ideal way to read a very thick book, but perhaps a good way to start, or if you're bored at work and want to look like you're working but actually are reading, here you go.

This truly is the best book I've ever read.  I don't want to write it because it's always written, but when I put this book down I knew it was the kind of great, sweeping but thought-provoking, well-written adventure I wanted to write, and it's become a cliché to say this about reading books, but it changed my life.

And speaking of Gaiman, I finally started reading Sandman today.  I really am not a comics girl, not at ALL, so I give you that before I say that I absolutely loved this comic.  Graphic novel, comic.  He's a comic lover, a comic reader, a comic writer.  It's a comic.  And it's brilliant, and I am possibly going to go out in the very cold and snow to get the second volume.  And the third.  And I am going to be saving my pennies for Absolute Sandman volumes.  Because someday Anna will need to read this, and I want it handy.

5000 words today, and also five loads of laundry, a loaf of banana bread, dinner, and read Sandman volume one.  And I still have the whole evening ahead of me . . . .

I mentioned Thursday night/early Friday that I made an iMovie for our Oscar party—I made two, and I’ve included them at the end of this post.  The iMovies are two spoof trailers for the non-existent movies *Daddy Dearest* and *8-5:30*. The latter a clunky title, but go with it for now.  I promise it will make sense during the viewing.  The former is a spoof on *Lord of the Rings* and *Mommie Dearest*, specifically my imagining of the love story of Joan Crawford and Lord Denethor.  The latter is a reversal take on the Superman villains—General Zod and his soliders are the saviors of Planet Houston, facing three very terrible foes.  I don’t want to give the foes away because it was SUCH a delight to see the party guests die laughing at who I cast as the baddies. 

I had SUCH fun making these.  I have literally spent days making them, likely upwards of ten hours work time per movie, but work has never been so fun.    It was such  welcome relief from writing, which despite all my horoscopes’ insistence it would go well, was feeling like hauling sludge uphill in iron buckets.  Part of the problem is that I’ve been working on this for six months, I just realized, giving me the double jeopardy of “I’m tired of this” and “It feels like I should be done by now.”  I was depressed yesterday because I was in the middle of a scene that was very good, but I just couldn’t enter it properly.  Too many days lately I’ve been wanting to do ANYTHING but write.   But making these movies was, in fact, writing, and it helped me gain fresh perspective on my creative process.  I learned the most in the middle of the second movie, when it wasn’t gelling and I had that oh-so-familiar feeling of, oh, crap, will this work?  Will it ever?  Is it worth my time?  Am I kidding myself?  But ultimately it did come together, and once again in the second movie I realized again what I’d felt in the crafting of the first. 

Everything I write is in these trailers.  Sure, there’s a goofy element to each, but I am so jonesing on the drama, faux or otherwise, that I kept flirting with in both.  They’re parody, but they’re also pretty damn good setups, if I do say so and they’re the sort of setups I love to write.    I realized making these that I live on that knife edge of bathos, **http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bathos**  skirting so close that occasionally I do slip over.  It freaks me out, too, because it means the part I poured your heart into might make someone laugh, but man, what a rush!  Plus, bathos is FUN.  When I watch these, yes, they’re over the top, but it’s obvious they’re supposed to be, so you just sort of watch and laugh and feel that adrenaline rise. Okay, most people will just laugh, and that’s okay because I intended that.  But  I dare you to not feel just a *little* bit giddy when Joan runs up the stairs at the end and opens the doors to meet Den.  I really, really do write like that—and there are also the odd little jokes that only those with brain patterns like mine will get, but that’s half the fun.  I even feel like I found my audience; these are two pretty well-known films, but still each in their way sort of niche.  And what do I do?  Snarl them together and make something completely different.

Sitting back and surveying this FINISHED PROJECT feels like a little gift from the muses in a slag period where I wasn’t sure I could write anything that made sense.  Obviously there is no career to be made taking other people’s movies and reinventing a new story, but there’s not much difference between creating that and creating anything else.  It takes a bit longer for the novel, but I’m feeling more hopeful today.  I’m looking forward to the first finished rough draft again, then to the snipping and shaping and substituting and polishing of the end product.  I’m looking forward even more to that feeling of sharing what I made with other people, of that giddy high feeling I felt as I sat there listening to them laugh, feeling the rush of energy in the room as something I created gave so many other people such happiness.  It made me wonder how many filmmakers sneak into movie theaters to catch the reactions of the audience unseen.

At any rate, here they are: the trailers for *Daddy Dearest* and *8-5:30*,  the movies you’ll never see, but maybe you should.

(Editing note—I’m a little let down by the transfer of the text, which is vital to the joke of the thing.  If you can’t read it, let me know and I’ll fuss with it.)

Daddy Dearest

*

*


8 to 5:30

*


*

I did get my 1500 words in for the day, but I also nailed down a rough draft of a five minute iMovie I made for our Oscar party on Sunday.  I am not ashamed to say that I have watched it about fifteen to twenty times--I crack myself up every time, and that's addictive.  I promise to post it on Sunday once I know all the guests are on the road.  Dan says it's Youtube worthy, but I worry about getting hammered for rights or something.  It's a love of both films, I have to say!  Your hint: I used both The Return of the King and Mommie Dearest.  God, but it's good.

I'm using this program called Snapz Pro X--I'm on a trial right now, but in fifteen days I have to say goodbye or pay $70 for the license.  I didn't think it would be worth it, but after messing with this all day I am going to be sorry to not be able to fork up the money.  Someday.  First new mouse then Adobe, then iLife 08, then Leopard . . . . then Snapz.  Sigh.

Bingley has now arrived to tell me emphatically that the food bowls are empty, and I see by the clock that it's tomorrow already.  Time for bed.  More writing tomorrow.

Well, it's from Neil Gaiman, loading them all onto last.fm and giving some away. He's giving away "Harlequin Valentine" today, but this one is the one I really wanted.

I don't know why it's carrying about invalid video urls, but click it and it should take you there all the same.


Neil Gaiman – A Writer's Prayer

Featuring Tennant in drag.

I love that man more every day.

Found this, here:

I have the bulk of both The Seven Valleys and Star of the Sea, and I can't stop playing them.  It's sort of . . . I don't know.  It's Stellamara.  If you like World Music at all, if you like Middle Easternish sounds, or if you just like hauntingly beautiful, a little dark music, give them a go.

Favorites are "Szerelem," which I use to enter the headsapce for Etsey (more on that later), "Kyrie Eleison" (which is free on last.fm!!!), "Persephone," and "Immrama," which is now the Jonathan-loves-Madeline theme song and had me in tears the other day as it was the backdrop to his scene.

Try them here--seriously, do.

So.

Tonight, do you think I:

1. Posted those journal entries, closed Firefox, took a zen breath and wrote for two hours

2. Posted those journal entries, opened my email and wrote, deep, meaningful correspondence

3. Watched every Eddie Izzard youtube video I could inhale in two hours and renewed my vow to buy them all as soon as possible.





Eddie, baby, I'm happily taken so this is purely in my mind--but breasts or no, I'm yours for a wink and a little show of leg.

I'm actually writing near to constantly these days, which is why all the blogs.  It's like I dump all the extra energy here; though in a few moments I have to go be in the real world and do very grounding things, such as mop the kitchen floor because we are sticking to it when we walk.

But as I'm catching up on a few messages and things before I go do that (and admittedly will try to sneak in another twenty-five words or so) I am listening to the playlist I have called "Alchemal Charles," and it is so doing it for me today.  And the song "Pater Noster" by Magna Canta just came on, and it makes me so damn happy I could hug myself.  I always see Charles directing it on the stage of his opera house in Prague, or what will be the Heidi makeover of Prague in the alternate world I've made.

It's just so wonderful.  Here.  Have a listen.

Back to work.

Several different friends of mine have recently done this, and at first I thought I shouldn't because most of mine are going to be all "WTF?" for most of the world, and then I decided to get my Glinda dress, tiara, wand, and cigar and just do it BECAUSE no one is going to get it.


1:



Kate Bush: The Hounds of Love


This album is from the magic time when Mike kept sending me bits and pieces of Kate Bush ("and this!  and this!  And do you like this?").  You'll notice she's my #1 last.fm artist, and a lot of it is because of this album.  I love the two parts, love the story behind it, and love, love, love, love The Ninth Wave.


And already I'm going to break the rules.

2.



I just plain like Goldfrapp.

I don't know which one of these albums I like best.  If you forced me to pick just ONE I'd probably take We Are Glitter, but that's just because it does so many things.  A lot of my favorite songs are on Supernature,  but it's not my favorite album.  I have fallen in love with "A&E", but Seventh Tree is still growing on me.  I think Felt Mountain is probably the coolest one artistically, but I admit I don't often pull it out to listen to straight.  Black Cherry might be the best mix of everything, but to be honest?  I like to type "Goldfrapp" into iTunes and hit random.

I learned about Goldfrapp once again from Mike, though at the moment my biggest gush partner over them seems to be youngdaniel.


3.



Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Requiem

No link, because it's not the performers I like, but the music.  My copy is something from the Value! bin at a music store in the late 90s.   I don't listen to this all the time, but when emotions get out of control or I just feel like swimming in it, I like to pull this out.  It's just so perfectly done, so Mozart, and I love it. 


4.





Enigma, A Posteriori

I can almost always listen to this album. I like the remixes, I like it straight up--I just like it.  Very dark, but full of hope in an odd way.  Just plain love it.


5.



Diane Arkenstone: Aquaria: A Liquid Blue Trancescape

This album will singlehandedly be the reason that no matter what alternate universe I set it in, no matter how long it takes, there WILL be a mermaid story.  Period.  Just very pretty and exotic and dangerous while being totally safe.  Okay, now I know why I love this album.  It's what I want to write.


Ask me tomorrow and it might be five different albums.  But these are the five for today.